College Admissions Blunders

By Mark Kantrowitz
on February 23, 2017

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When you learn that you got into your first-choice college, wait a day before celebrating. The admissions notification could be an error, especially if the notification doesn’t come on the college’s official notification date.

Previously, it was easy to tell whether you really got in or not. If you got in, a fat envelope would arrive in the mail with the acceptance letter and a bunch of materials. If you were rejected, a thin envelope would arrive. The worst crisis for anxious teenagers would occur when a college sent the acceptance letter separately, in a thin envelope.

But, today it is so easy for a college to incorrectly tell students they got in with the accidental push of a button. Almost every year, one or more colleges mess up, raising and dashing the hopes of hundreds of prospective students.

This table lists some of the admissions notification errors over the last decade.